Hats off to sunny spring luncheon
Bright skies and $400,000 raised highlight 11th annual Hats in the Park
“The weather stole the show this year,” observed
Mary D’Andrea from the McGovern Centennial Gardens.
Wet, cloudy or abysmally humid temperatures have become something of a tradition for the Hermann Park Conservancy’s annual Hats in the Park luncheon. Not this year. Beneath uncharacteristically sunny skies, chairs Francine Ballard and Greggory Burke welcomed some 374 arrivals to the Cherie Flores Garden Pavilion late Thursday morning. And patrons dressed accordingly. Floral dresses and millinery-in-bloom matched the wildflower centerpieces and surrounding grounds. Chic young things
Rachel Solar and Brooke Bentley Gunst even coordinated their matching Self Portrait tops — why not?
“I was just informed that women are now shopping for their hats in Paris or London,” board chairman Phoebe
Tudor announced to open the soiree’s famously brief program. It’s true — D’Andrea, for one, shared that she’d purchased her striking headpiece while abroad in the City of Light.
Tudor also teased that the conservancy’s new 20-year master plan is underway and will focus on nature and play. “Great parks are never complete.”
Later, before introducing Mayor Sylvester
Turner, she invited the crowd to “applaud his amazing hat.”
“I’ve been to this luncheon enough times to know that this is an important event. I had a baseball cap on, but I said, ‘That’s not going to do it,’ ” he quipped in a foam Yosemite Sam-meets-Pharrell Williams-style topper. “I did not go to London.”
As guests dug into City Kitchen’s gazpacho, chicken salad, farro and wax vegetables, conservancy president Doreen Stoller explained that there are two types of park visitors: “Those who grew up here and remember that mud pit, and those who don’t believe me when I describe how ugly it was.”
With more than $400,000 raised by afternoon’s end, there’s case enough for a third group: those who know that every penny has been well worth it.